Recipe Notes: Thin and Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies

23 May 2018

Recipe from The Perfect Cookie, America's Test Kitchen, 2017, p. 29; recipe also available online.

Chocolate Chip cookies have always been a favorite. I have tried many different recipes over the years and I have a few favorites. In my new-ish cookbook, The Perfect Cookie, I found a recipe I hadn't tried that aims for a thin, crispy cookie. I like the standard size and texture just fine, but I have also had thin and crispy chocolate chip cookies that I enjoyed. It would be great if I had a good recipe that I could use to make them at home.

This is one of the easier cookies to make. The ingredient list is relatively short and the technique is simple. Flour, baking soda, and salt were whisked together in a bowl then set aside. In a stand mixer, melted butter was mixed with sugar, brown sugar, and corn syrup. To this mixture an egg yolk, some milk, and vanilla extract were incorporated. The dry ingredients were then blended with the wet and finally the chocolate chips were added. I used a #60 portioning scoop (about 1 tablespoon) to drop the dough onto baking sheets before baking them at 375°. After just an hour in the kitchen I had three dozen cookies.

I made this recipe twice because the first time I over baked them. The recipe suggests 12 minutes but while thin and crispy these cookies were too dark. The same was true for a batch I baked for 10 minutes. The second time I made these (after eating my way through the first batch, couldn't let them go to waste) I reduced the baking time to 9 minutes. This solved the over baking problem but now the cookies were not crispy. The flavor was not as good as other recipes I have come to rely on, the texture wasn't special, and they seemed a little short on chocolate chips. Several people, commenting on the online recipe, reported having similar problems. If you haven't guessed already, these were disappointing so I doubt I'll be making them again.